Never Danced Like This Before
by Unoriginality
Summary: Maria finally learns to dance, and learns a few things about her feelings towards her dance instructor. (A BTWWL fic)


Maria was slowly getting the hang of that whole cooking thing that her new boyfriend was trying to teach her. She liked the variety it had introduced into her diet; he was right, food got boring if you eat the same thing over and over. She hadn't realized how bad her diet was until he started teaching her.

Staying in at her own apartment for dinner instead of cooking at his was getting awful, with her cans of Amy's Organic soups and other assorted quick-and-easy foods that she'd lived on for far too long at that point.

The trick wasn't even in the cooking. The cooking was easy. It was the planning that was hard. Until she had a built up supply of spices and goods, she had to buy everything in every recipe. The site that Bucky had shown her was fantastic, it let her adjust serving size to just herself, but there was still a trick to it. She had to plan for a week's worth of food that would work across multiple recipes so nothing would go bad.

Meat was okay, she could always portion it off and freeze the rest for thawing for future meals. But even that needed planning earlier in the day, so it had time to do that defrosting thing.

But she was learning. And she liked learning new things, especially new survival skills.

"Excuse me, Miss Hill," JARVIS said, interrupting her train of thought.

She looked up from making her grocery list for the week, which still had a couple of soups for quick lunches. She felt guilty about them. "Yes, JARVIS?"

"You have an incoming video call from Mister Barnes. Shall I lower your screen, or would you prefer he leave a message?"

"I'll take the call," she said, setting aside her grocery list and walking over to the lowering screen. "This is Hill," she answered, purely by habit, once Bucky's face had appeared on the screen.

He laughed. "Are you ever going to break that habit?"

"Only when you stop following Steve up the stairs to make sure he doesn't have an asthma attack," she said calmly, but she wasn't bothering to hide her amusement much.

"So in other words, never," he said. "The only one of us who doesn't have a bad habit is Sharon, unless you count her being completely evil at all times."

Maria raised an eyebrow. "Did she hit you with another slipper this last week?"

Bucky made a noise somewhere between a groan and a whine. "She threatened. She was too busy trying to find out which brilliant idiot in the government hired us to go break a couple of American prisoners out of North Korea."

Maria pursed her lips, fighting back the urge to laugh and bitch at the same time. He was right, whoever hired them was an idiot, and they were bigger idiots for taking the job. Maria was already starting to understand Sharon's constant ulcer and use of a rubber soled slipper. "Well, I have to agree that it was a bit of a gamble, sending in two easily-recognized mercenaries obviously not of local descent to infiltrate a prison in a military state country and break out two prisoners condemned to years of hard labor."

Bucky looked every bit a smug jackass and while she'd normally find that very irritating, he managed to make it endearing. "Yeah, but our gambles usually pay off. Don't worry, we're fine, the ex-prisoners are fine, and the North Korean government is chewing on its spleen at the moment. Anyway, that's not why I called."

She crossed her arms over her chest, expecting nothing more than an invitation over for lessons. She found the idea tempting. But she wasn't going to invite herself over, not unless he decided not to do it for her. "So this wasn't just to listen to the sound of my voice?"

The biggest grin crossed his face. "I could listen to you talk all day, Maria," he said, and she sometimes wondered how serious his flirtations were. They seemed over the top. "But I was going to ask if you were interested in learning a dance or two from my time. I know I've complained about modern dancing enough, maybe you'd like to see why."

That was unexpected. She tilted her head. "You're taking me dancing?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, not far, just down to the ballroom, if I can arrange it. We gotta teach you to dance before we start looking for a dance hall to invade. I thought you might prefer to learn in private, rather than make a public debut without a lesson or two."

Protecting her ego. Score one for him. "I suppose you make a point," she said. "What day and what time?"

Bucky looked away, towards where she knew their wall clock to be. "Well, it's three now, I can get permission to use the ballroom after the work day's over today, if you want. St-" He looked over again, and Maria heard Steve's voice from somewhere off-camera. "You are? Okay, you two have fun storming the castle." He looked back at Maria, looking a bit ashamed. "Steve just said that he and Sharon are planning on hitting up a show over on Broadway. I know teaching you the foxtrot isn't terribly exciting by contrast, but since they'll be gone, I can cook you something nice, then we can go down and I can teach you to dance."

Oh, Bucky. She couldn't help but smile. "We can save the Broadway play for another time. You don't need to sound so self-deprecating about it. I've been wanting to learn to dance, that's more important to me."

That seemed to take the edge off of his embarrassment. Honestly, it was like he thought he had to hang the moon and stars for the people he cared about, or it wasn't good enough. If their relationship lasted, she'd have to unteach him that.

"Hey, if the pretty lady says that's what's important to her, I'm not gonna tell her no," he said. "I'll call Tony next, get permission for that ballroom, then call you back with a time?"

"That will work, actually. I can finish my grocery list while I wait."

That got a laughing grin from him. "Depending on how late it is before we can get the ballroom, I could be completely romantic and escort you around Morton Williams."

Maria smiled and sighed in exasperation. "Call Tony, don't worry about my grocery habits. I'd like to practice feeding myself on my own for awhile."

Bucky shrugged. "Well, you know how to get a hold of me if you change your mind. I'll talk to you in a few minutes."

They disconnected, and Maria went back to her table long enough to grab her phone to return to making her list. She sat down on her couch instead of at her table to work. Minutes passed, more than she thought necessary to contact Tony. When his friends wanted something, Tony usually said "done" before the request was finished being made. Maybe Bucky was doing something else? Or hit a snag? Maybe Tony wasn't available, and he was waiting.

What was taking so long?

Maria finished her grocery list.

She went over it to be sure she got everything.

She went over it a second time.

She was almost ready to give up and just go down to Bucky's apartment when JARVIS announced his incoming call. She bit back a sigh of relief before setting aside her phone. "This is Hill," she said upon answering.

"Sorry about the wait," Bucky said. "Tony and Pepper had to do some rearranging for us. The place had a tentative claim. But it wasn't a definite, so they shuffled things around."

Relief crashed in on Maria's head. His lack of a timely response wasn't any fault in their relationship. "I'll remember to thank them," she said. "What time should I expect to go over for dinner?"

"How about six?" he said. "Steve and Sharon are leaving at five-thirty, that gives me a chance to take over the place and come up with dinner."

"I'll be there," she said, then paused before saying good bye. "Should we be dressed up for this?"

Bucky looked caught off-guard by that. "Normally for dancing, yes, but since you're just learning with private lessons, you don't have to. Did you want to?"

She did. A real date where she dressed up and enjoyed time with her partner. She hadn't had that in years, not since joining SHIELD, really. "I have nice clothes, it'd be a change of pace."

That earned her one of his smiles that seemed to light up like the sun. "Then we'll dress up. You don't have to wear heels if you don't want to, though. Not when learning to dance. Once you have the hang of it, you can practice in heels."

Maria raised an eyebrow that was accompanied by an amused smile. "Don't want your toes stepped on?"

"I was thinking more of your ankles," he said. "I'll see you at six?"

"Six o' clock," she agreed. They said their good byes and hung up.

She had just under three hours in which to do her shopping, put groceries away, shower and change. Plenty of time, assuming the grocery store wasn't going to be a pain in the ass. And if it was, she'd have to hurry.

That decided, she headed out.

Luckily for her, the grocery store wasn't too terrible, which left her enough time to get home and have a nice, long, hot shower to shave and scrub. It left her time to work with her hair. He'd taken interest in her at the ball, and she'd had her hair down in curls. She decided to skip the curls, but having her hair down instead of pulled up into a practical twist would be a nice change of pace.

Her wardrobe gave her a pause. She had nice clothes, but they were all intended for business wear for her job with Stark Industries. Not one dress meant for going out on a date. Bucky was teaching her to dance, she wanted to wear something that would be more appropriate for a dance date from his time.

A nice pair of slacks and a blouse would have to do; it was the closest she had. If the relationship lasted, she was changing that. He did nice things for her, some silly and old-fashioned, but he was from another era. It was only fair that she do nice things for him, like dress up in a way she knew he'd find attractive.

She decided to take his advice and skip the heels.

Six o' clock came, and she, dressed in what she hoped was nice enough for a proper date, headed down the hall to his apartment. Their dates so far had been casual, cooking and a movie, sometimes with Sharon and Steve. Bucky had asked before if she'd like to go out and she'd always turned him down. She wondered if she shouldn't have, in retrospect.

When he answered the door, she was relieved to see that his nice shirt and slacks weren't dressier than her own outfit, although the tie made her feel a tiny bit under dressed. A dress. Yes. Had to invest in one.

While she had worn her hair down, he'd worn his up, and the way the shorter locks framed his face was flattering. She smiled, hoping it could match the one on his face. "You look nice," she said.

"You're stealing my line," he said, offering his arm to escort her to the table. It seemed a bit odd, the table was less than thirty feet from them, but she indulged him. "I don't think I've seen you dressed up except at the ball."

Damn. "I have nice clothes for work," she said. "But you usually don't see me at work. You're busy working with Bruce. Or gallivanting off to exotic and strange lands to blow things up."

He laughed, letting go of her arm to pull out her chair for her. "I have a fun job, that's all."

Maria took her seat. "You know you didn't have to do that," she said.

Bucky paused, looking at her in a way that she'd seen before, like someone told he didn't have to breathe anymore. She was starting to realize it was because of culture shock. "You don't want me to? I didn't realize it was bothering-"

"It's not," she interrupted quickly. "I've just never had a relationship where I was treated like that. I'm not used to it. That's all." She smiled, hoping it'd make that look go away. "I don't mind. I promise."

He seemed mollified. "As long as it doesn't make you uncomfortable."

"It doesn't," she said, then looked towards the kitchen. "You've been busy. I smell carrots and curry."

That won back that sunshine smile. "I know you like spicy Asian dishes. Thought I'd try something from Laos tonight."

"I've not had Laotian food," she said. "It certainly smells good."

He stepped into the kitchen, around the bar and island. "It's a carrot curry soup," he said, grabbing two saucers with sizable bowls on them. He carried the bowls out to the table and set hers down in front of her before settling in with his own.

She studied her food. It looked like the soup had been pureed before being garnished with some finely chopped nuts of some sort. "What sort of nut is that?" she asked before taking a tentative sip. "This is very good."

"It's cashew," he said, and she realized he was apparently more interested in watching her than eating his own food. "Glad you like it. I was kinda hoping this one wouldn't be a flop."

"You rarely make flops," Maria assured him. "Now eat your soup. Watching me eat can't be that entertaining."

Their meals were almost never taken in silence, conversation punctuating every bite. It never ceased to amaze her how they could find something to talk about even when nothing new was going on their lives since the day before, when they'd last spoken. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a friend like that.

"I have a question," she said as their food was gone, and he was reaching for her bowl.

"Hm?" He took her empty bowl and stacked it with his. "I have lots of answers. We can see which one matches."

"How did your brother react when the news came on about your mission in North Korea?"

Bucky shook his head, rolling his eyes in a distinctly irritated manner. "The little brat called me up about ten seconds after the news hit and called me an idiot." He walked into the kitchen. "Among other things."

"Would you like help?" she asked, watching him rinsing the dishes.

"No, I got it," he said. "It's all ready to go, just gotta put these in." Once the dishwasher was running, he walked back around to the table. "What brought up my brother?"

Maria shrugged. "I just wondered. Sometimes things pop into peoples' minds without any real prompting. Unless I'm an oddity for that."

"No, it happens to me, too. So if it's not normal, we can be weird together." He had a glorious smile, charismatic, warm. A good smile. She could very easily fall for it if she wasn't careful. He held out his hand. "Care to go dancing?"

She took his offered hand. "I would love to."

Maria wasn't used to being escorted like a lady, not outside special functions, but Bucky insisted that she be treated properly on the way down to the ballroom. She had a feeling she'd have to get used to it if their relationship lasted. Which was something they needed to talk about eventually.

Not yet. She wasn't sure where she stood yet. Soon, though.

"So you said you'd be teaching me the foxtrot?" she said once they were in the ballroom. It was empty, with plenty of open floor space for them to work in.

"It was the most popular couples' dance in my time," he said. "It didn't stop becoming a standard at high school proms until after the fifties sometime. It's still done, just not by default anymore." He led her to the center of the room. "You ready?"

She positioned herself in front of him. "Ready. How do we do this?"

He took her right hand in his left, the cool metal wrapping around her fingers. "Put your other hand up on my shoulder." Once she'd done so, he put his hand on her back, right around her shoulder blades.

"Your hand isn't supposed to be on my waist?" she asked. She found that odd.

"Not the way I learned," he said. "Remember, I lead. You'll be going backwards. You'll step back with your right foot, then your left. We'll take two steps-" He nudged her foot until she followed his lead. "-then step over with your right foot, then bring your feet together."

They performed the steps a couple more times, just to make sure her feet were going in the right places, but with how easy the steps were, it wasn't hard. "What's the pacing?" she asked.

"The two steps are slow, then the step to the side and bringing your feet together is quick," he said. "So slow, slow, quick, quick."

A few more practice steps. "This is too easy," she said. "I'm afraid you're about to drop something on me."

He laughed. "Sorta. At its most basic, assuming you had all the room in the world and wanted to be very boring, that's it. That's the foxtrot. Obviously, in a real dance hall situation, you can't just do that."

"I knew you were about to drop something on me," she said. "All right, we don't have a large ballroom all to ourselves. What next?"

It only took them a half hour to go through the basics. The cornering was easy- walk, walk, side, together, walk, shift weight back, turn a quarter and quick steps together. In fact, all of the steps were easy, the promenade, the turn, although that one gave her a bit of consternation, trying to follow Bucky's lead. She'd never danced formally before, having someone else dictating her actions was a bit awkward.

Bucky instructed her every step, talking her through the movements until she became comfortable that her feet would respond without a verbal cue.

After a few turns around the floor, he took them to a stop. "Think you're ready to try it to music?"

Maria went over the steps again in her head before nodding. "I think so, yes."

He tilted his head upwards. "JARVIS, mind queuing up _Why Don't You Do Right_?"

"Of course, sir," JARVIS said. "Which cover would you prefer?"

"Peggy Lee's," he said

None of that made any sense to Maria, but she wasn't surprised. She wasn't particularly well-versed in the music of his days, outside of a handful of Christmas songs and maybe one or two others here and there.

However, she recognized the song that started playing, although the tempo was quicker than what her mind was trying to remember. "I know this song," she said, half-distracted as she focused on following his lead. Walk, walk, side, together, side, underarm turn, side, together, side, together.

Bucky looked surprised by that. "Really? It's an old song. I first heard it in college, although it wasn't called this at the time. It was called _Weed Smoker's Dream_, if you can buy that."

Her eyebrows raised, her attention still only half-focused on the conversation. "Interesting title."

"They cleaned it up in the early forties," he said. "Had it rerecorded by uh. Oh god, I can't remember her name. Peggy Lee did it a year later, though."

"I wish I could figure out why this is familiar," she said. "I heard it as a child. Maybe it was one of my grandfather's old records."

It wasn't overt, it was subtle, but she saw him wince at that. "Maybe," he said. "I don't know who's done it since Peggy Lee. I died a few years later."

He died. She knew that he hadn't actually, no more than Steve had. But to the world, he had, and it was a good way of differentiating his life before Hydra from the life Hydra had damned him to. It didn't stand out much to Maria, normally. It was a time marker, nothing more. But to him, it was far more, and every bit more of himself he showed her, the more she understood that.

In fact, she realized he was showing more of himself to her than she was to him. And it was quickly becoming apparent to her how unfair that was.

She pushed that aside for a moment. "JARVIS, were there any covers done since I was young that I might've heard?" she asked, still following him around the floor.

"Based on your age, I would say it is likely that the song is familiar due to the movie, _Who Framed Roger Rabbit?_," JARVIS answered. "It was performed in the lounge scene."

"Oh! Yes, that would be it," she said. "Did they have lounges in your day?" she asked Bucky, turning under his arm.

Walk, walk, side, together. "We had lounges, sure," he said. "I don't know if we're thinking of the same kind. You'll have to show me the movie."

Conversation stopped, Peggy Lee's voice the only one in the ballroom. The dance had become more fluid, slow and quick to the rhythm of the song. Lee sang about a man who had terrible money handling skills, who wasted money and no longer had anything to support her with. The big band instruments crooned behind her voice.

And in all of it, Bucky's smile had turned into the sun, brilliant and radiant and she could get lost forever in it. This was him in his natural environment, the world he'd grown up in brought back to life for just a brief moment, and she was part of that. She wanted to keep being a part of that.

Maybe it was time for that talk they needed to have.

They danced to several more songs, none of which she recognized, but it didn't matter. Every song that passed, the younger Bucky seemed, like the years that had been taken from him were gone, and she was seeing the man that Steve had been friends with since childhood, the man that chased off bullies, who poured over books and played sports with his friends. The man who never wanted to have to look someone in the eye and shoot them.

And how she wanted to keep things like that forever.

But forever was a long time, and not part of reality. When the music stopped, the present came back, but Bucky's smile was still there. "So, is dancing a regular thing now, or was it boring?"

That smile was infectious, and she returned it with one of her own. "It wasn't boring," she said. Then her expression turned more serious. "Do you mind if we go back to your apartment? We need to talk."

That smile disappeared, replaced with a look of alarm that almost managed to look resigned at the same time. "You know that that's one of the most terrifying things a woman can say to a man, right?"

She took his metal hand, now warm from the heat of her own. "It's nothing bad, I promise," she said. "It's just a talk that we need to have."

That didn't seem to reassure him much, and she knew it wouldn't, but he offered her his arm anyway, escorted her like a gentleman all the way back up to his apartment, let her in first, let her pick where to sit. She chose the couch, something she almost never did. He stood a moment, looking uncertain where was safe for him to sit.

She patted the spot beside her. "Sit by me?"

Bucky looked grateful for her making that decision for him, settling himself next to her. "Okay. You wanted to talk."

Maria shifted slightly to face him a bit more, taking a moment to decide how to approach the subject. But, as she knew she would, she approached it directly. "What do you want from this relationship?"

Bucky either looked relieved, or even more uptight, and Maria genuinely wasn't sure which. "So you weren't breaking up with me. Okay." He took in a breath. "I guess that depends on you, honestly."

"You're the one that's never wanted commitment," she pointed out.

He leaned back slightly, head tilted in thought. "You're right, I never did. I never had reason to. I was young, I wanted fun and no strings." He went quiet a moment. "I'm older now, though. Older than I want to be." He looked out the window. "Even without the missing decades, the war alone made me feel old. I didn't think I'd want anything permanent coming out of the brainwashing, but that's because I never thought anything would be permanent in my life except Steve." He smiled faintly. "And despite the jokes, that's never been a consideration for either of us."

"But that's changed now?" she asked, somewhat leading.

He looked back at her. "Yeah. You and the other Avengers gave me back a family. You guys gave me something permanent. I'd kinda like to hold onto it."

"Including to me?"

Bucky studied her. "Well, one way or another, yeah, you're an Avenger, we're stuck with each other. But I know what you meant. And..." he trailed off. "I wouldn't mind trying for something longer. But I'm not going to pressure you into anything you don't want. You know that, right? I don't do that to women. It's your decision. I'm just along for the ride."

Maria nodded a bit, thinking. "I've been unfair, Bucky. You've been trying to make this work more than I have. That's not because I'm unhappy with the relationship. It's because I wasn't sure what I wanted from it. I haven't had a steady partner in years. With my line of work, it was dangerous to have one, and I was too busy anyway." She looked down at her hands, folding them on her knees. "But I got to see something special tonight. I got to see you, how you were before Hydra, before the war. I got to see Bucky Barnes. And I know that a long-term relationship won't magically make that an every day occurrence, but I'd like to spend time getting to see that more often." She looked up at him. "I want to give us a try."

This time, he definitely looked relieved, tension draining from his shoulders and neck, exhaling a deep breath. "I've been wondering if I was doing something wrong. So we're in it for the long run?"

The long run. That sounded very nice. Nicer than she'd expected. It made her smile. "We are."

He leaned in, met her lips with his. His arms wrapped around her waist, holding her while she returned the kiss, soft and slow, with no urgency, just a sensuous kiss, something to get lost in until need for air drove them apart. But only for a moment. Only the briefest of moments before lips pressed against lips, parted against each other, each other's heat mingling and making her flush.

Seconds felt not long enough at all, but finally, she drew back, broke the kiss, but didn't leave him, shifting to rest her head on his shoulder. She didn't care that it was his metal shoulder.

"You know, that's probably not the most comfortable pillow," he said, arms still around her, his flesh hand petting her hair gently.

She smiled against him. "It's part of you. A part I'm not going to reject just because it's not always comfortable. I don't mind. If I get a kink in my neck, I'll move."

He nuzzled her hair, breath warm, even, and comforting. She couldn't remember when she'd last been held like that without expectations. It was addicting.

Behind her, a door opened. She jerked, not sure when she'd dozed off, or when Bucky had, if his similar reaction of disorientation was any indication. She sat up, rubbing her neck, and looked behind her.

Steve was staring at them. "Was I not supposed to come home yet?" he asked. Maria couldn't quite tell how serious he was being.

"No, it's fine," Bucky said. Maria looked back just in time to see him stretch and crack his neck. How he could not find that painful, she couldn't imagine. The sound was awful, like he was managing to commit suicide by snapping is own neck. He turned and looked at the wall clock. "Shit, it's almost midnight." He looked at Maria. "I have no idea when I fell asleep."

She shook her head. "Neither do I. But it's late, and we're both obviously tired. I should go home." She felt no surprise when he stood and offered his hand.

"I'll walk you home."

She didn't protest, taking his hand and keeping a hold of it. "Good night, Steve," she said as they passed him at the door.

"Good night," he said, then looked at Bucky and added, "should I be saying that to you, too?"

"Sharon doesn't keep your mouth occupied enough, Rogers," Bucky said in response. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Maria didn't bother to muffle her laughter. "He really is like a younger brother, isn't he?" she asked once the door had shut behind them and they were walking down the hall to her apartment.

Bucky looked up at the ceiling like he was trying to count the ways in which Steve had given him the grief only a little sibling could give. "All my life," he said, glancing back towards the door. "He's lucky I wouldn't have it any other way."

She gave his hand a squeeze, even though it was his left hand and he wouldn't have felt it. "You know, that loyalty is one of the things I find attractive about you. Loyalty like that is hard to find."

He looked at her. "I think our group manages to bring it all together," he said. "That includes you."

They stopped outside her door. She looked at it, briefly toyed with the idea of inviting him in, but decided against it. What she didn't decide against, however, was a good night kiss, another slow and smoky kiss, her arms wrapped around his neck, his around her waist. That kiss could've lasted forever and she wouldn't have been tired, until it was interrupted by her having to pull back to yawn.

Hm. Maybe not.

He laughed. "Get inside and get some sleep," he said, kissing her forehead. "See you tomorrow?"

"Possibly," she said. "You've taught me to cook, I have groceries I need to use to make my own meals here once in awhile. But I'll see you elsewhere, I'm sure."

"Holding you to that," he said, kissing her once more, before stepping back to let her leave.

She entered her apartment, closing her door behind her, and leaned back against it. She felt lightheaded, maybe just a bit dizzy. She let the reason sink in. She was a taken woman. She had a partner that was sticking around, that wasn't going to be a fun but forgotten fling. It felt nice.

Taking in a breath and counting to three before releasing it, she headed back to her room to change and sleep.


End file.
